Interesting testimony by the daughter of the preceding pastor at Hammond Baptist (even if one disagrees with the additional commentary provided by Mr. Cloud):
“My dad pastored a church that evolved into a 50,000-member cult. It operated and still operates under the guise of an independent fundamental Baptist church. But those who have left, the followers who have tried to leave, the outsiders, even the media (it was on 20/20 last year) recognize that it is clearly a cult.
“Every member was in complete obedience to my father. They didn’t dare disagree or be disloyal, for fear of being publicly ridiculed or punished or banished for doing so. They didn’t go on a vacation without asking my dad’s permission, and if he had said to drink the Kool-aid, I’m not kidding, they would have.
“My dad lived a double life, one of a righteous family man and of a dynamic speaker in the public eye, but [another] one of sordid sexual secrets privately, secrets that only my siblings and me and my mom knew. He hated my mom. Hated her. Treated her terribly. Abused her. And even turned his own children against his mother. We hated her. He told us she was crazy. We thought to make him happy, we would hate her too. Our home was so full of turmoil, hatred, stress, strife, and as a little girl, it was isolating, it was intense, and it was frightening. He had affairs. He had a mistress for many years, the wife of a Sunday School teacher. He built her family a beautiful home right around the corner from our house. You could see their family from our back door. It was craziness, living one way, preaching another.
“My older brother became another version of my father. He pastored a church in Texas and was found to be having affairs with 14 different women. He divorced his wife and married one of the 14. My father tried desperately to cover it up. He moved him to another church where he was found to have had 17 affairs with different women, and he just recreated what he had seen my dad live. And my dad did nothing but cover it up. I felt like I had one main responsibility as a child. It was simple, but daunting, and that was to keep all the secrets, and there were so many.
“You see, he had taught us that the best way to please God was to please him, because he was God’s man. He taught us that to please him we had to keep all the secrets. We could never even tell our best friends what went on in our home, because we might be the cause of the destruction of his ministry. I literally feared for my very life if I ever told what went on in our home, for fear that it would hurt his ministry. I was so afraid, and the greater the secrets, the greater my fear, and the greater my determination to keep quiet.
“I got to tell you that the money part of it was pretty nice. As a kid--think about it, tithes and offerings from 50,000 people, hello--it created a lavish lifestyle. My father owned most of the city where the church was. He owned a college, two high schools, two grade schools, a cemetery, lots of buildings. He was very wealthy. And even to our adult years, he owned us. He owned our homes, our cars, our furniture. He owned our lives, and we didn’t dare cross him, because we were too afraid we would lose everything. He died a multi-millionaire. He left nothing to his children. He left everything to the organization, which my younger sister and her husband now lead. And they still perpetuate his legacy: the strict rules, the undying loyalty, and they still try to keep all the secrets”
El Moose Monstero: That would be the winning song at Eurovision. I still say the Moldovans were more fun. And that one about the Apricot Tree.
That said...it is growing on me.
Thanas: It is one of those songs that kinda get stuck in your head so if you hear it several times, you actually grow to like it.
General Zod: It's the musical version of Stockholm syndrome.
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